Don’t ask me how I came up with the idea of having pet chickens. I can only tell you that it started a little something like this-
I said- “Honey, do you know what would be really cool?”
Holming says- “No thanks; I don’t want to know (also thinking- how much is this one going to cost us???)”
I still say- “Wouldn’t it be fun and cool to have our own chooks?!?!?”
Holming says- “Where did you learn that word from?”
I say- “That’s what they call chickens here in New Zealand. Oh, and- think of how much money we would save on groceries each month.
Even though he didn’t buy that last comment, he saw the excitement and enthusiasm in my face and couldn’t resist. Wink...Wink...
If you have seen the photos on my picasa album, they tell you the story of all the manual labour we have put in to building our own chicken run, and remodelling the chicken coop that I purchased, then hated, so Holming took it apart and made it bigger. I would like to share the story of how and why we decided to get ex-battery hens.
Once Holming agreed to the chicken situation, I realised that I didn’t have the first clue as to where one goes to get live chickens. I didn’t even know that there is a difference between meat chickens and layer hens (the ones we get our eggs from). While researching, I came across the Animal Sanctuary’s website. They had a section on adopting ex-battery hens. Just clicking on that link, opened my eyes to a whole new world of animal cruelty. I had absolutely no idea that the “non” free-ranged eggs I used to buy came from a place like this .
Hens are kept in cages (up to 7 in one small cage) in a dark building with no windows. They lay every day their first season, then get so traumatised by the conditions they are kept in that they lose their feather’s and stop laying. The hens will lay again at some point but they need recovery time to regrow their feathers. However, the egg farms don’t want to wait around for that to happen. So at this point the hens are killed or sold to pet food companies (and you know what happens there).
The whole process just seems so inhumane, and can’t be very healthy for us humans to eat these kind of eggs...from stressed-out, traumatised chickens. From that day on, I decided we would ONLY buy free-range eggs in the Lee house. So, I was on the hunt to rescue and adopt a couple of ex-battery hens.
Finding ex-battery hens was no easy task. Places like the Animal Sanctuary go in a rescue a hundred or so hens at a time then adopt them out. Unfortunately, because of all the bad press (for the egg farms) and great information sharing (by the public) such as blogging, you tube, and non-profit orgs, the egg farms in these parts would rather kill the hens instead of allowing the rescues to take place. I ended up joining the Chicken Rescue Network which found me 2 of the sweetest ex-battery hens a girl could ever ask for.
We have 4 hens in total. Two of which are ex-battery and two black silkie/araucana crosses. We got the 2 black ones because they were small and unique; and, they were supposed to lay blue-shelled eggs. As of yet we’ve not seen a blue-shelled egg so, the joke is on us. The 2 rescues are the social girls of the bunch. They are starved for attention and food. The minute we go out with their dinner they start clucking and calling to us. It’s the absolute cutest thing.
On to the eggs- Wow! Talk about a party in my mouth. I’ve never had fresh eggs before so had no expectations. Our first egg was from Roxy (the black chook with red comb). We cooked it up along with a store bought free-ranged egg to compare, and oh my, the difference in flavour was remarkable. We are damaged goods.....
Please help by buying free-ranged eggs.
